Carnival Cruise Line will double its Long Beach operations in square footage and ships under an expansion that breaks ground tomorrow.
The Miami-based cruise ship operator runs its own terminal in Long Beach and is set to grow the space it uses from 66,000 square feet to 142,000 square feet; it will eventually run four ships out of the facility, on 250 trips to Hawaii, Alaska, and Mexico, and carrying about 700,000 passengers a year by 2018.
Currently it runs two ships, to Mexico only, with about 625,000 passengers a year.
Long Beach will collect about $2.1 million in passenger fees under the expansion.
News reports said a Los Angeles developer has prepared plans for a $250 million entertainment complex in the area, to include an outdoor amphitheater, shops, restaurants, a hotel and other amenities, anchored by the cruise ship operations.
Carnival Cruise Line is owned by Southampton, U.K.-based Carnival Plc, which runs 10 cruise ship brands on several continents, including Carnival, Princess Cruises, Holland America, P&O, and Cunard.
It earned $2.8 billion in net income on $16.4 billion in revenue last year.
